Page 4 - Monthly Archives: August 2015

With Friday, August 21^st set to feature the first La Liga match of the 2015 2016 season, the countdown is on for all of the football clubs in the division to begin finalizing their rosters. For FC Barcelona, there's not much to do, considering the FIFA-mandated transfer ban that will keep the club from playing any of their new summer transfers until January. One task that did need completing was selecting a new captain. It was announced last week that Andres Iniesta named as Barcelona captain, why Iniesta? And will he be a strong leader?

At the end of Barca's treble-winning 2014 2015 season, the football club said goodbye as captain and longtime player Xavi Hernandez hung up the Barcelona home shirt for good. Xavi will play with Qatari squad Al Sadd for the 2015 2016, and while he was only captain at Camp Nou for a single season, he had been with the team for so long (17 seasons and 767 overall appearances) that moving on without him will be a major adjustment.

Societa Sportiva Lazio were a top-ranked Italian football club at the turn of the century, keep reading this SS Lazio team profile to find out more about the clubs highs and lows. Between 1998 and 2000, the squad won a Serie A title once, the Coppa Italia twice, the Supercoppa Italia twice, the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup, and the UEFA Super Cup. It was an astonishing show of success for a soccer club that had only won a small handful of major trophies before (a Serie A title from the 1973 1974 season and a Coppa Italia from 1957 1958), and it put Lazio on the map as a team to watch for the new era of Italian football.

Compared to the lightning-in-a-bottle success of those three years, it's tough not to see what Lazio has done since as a disappointment. In the years following the 1999 2000 season, the White and Sky Blues scored three more Coppa Italia victories (in 2004, 2009, and 2013), and even won the Supercoppa Italia one more time (in 2009). However, as of yet, Lazio have not won

Thanks to their win in the Scottish League Championship last season, Glasgow Celtic will have an opportunity to qualify for the 2015 2016 UEFA Champions League via the playoffs. The Scottish soccer club have been drawn against Sweden's Malmo FF in the "Champions Route," which consists of league winners from countries where football isn't quite as popular or competitive as it is in England, Spain, etc. Last year, Celtic at the UEFA Champions League, suffered disappointment in the playoff, Slovenia's NK Maribor in a two-leg battle defeated them, but they did qualify for the UCL group stage in 2013 2014.

Could this year see the Celts returning to the prestigious European football tournament? Pick up a Glasgow Celtic shirt 2015 2016 from Soccer Box to root for the club, and then read on for a brief history of their appearances and performances in the Champions League.

Glasgow Celtic at the Champions League

The Celts

Though he's earned his keep since the fall of 2011 Manchester City's Edin Dzeko set for AS Roma transfer. Despite a delay due to AS Roma exceeding their quota of non-EU players, Dzeko will be joining the Serie A club on a year long loan, with the option of a permanent transfer later. The details are vague but it seems as though a permanent transfer will be for a fee of around £14 million (plus a reported £2.6 million in add-ons). That's a good deal less than what City paid to bring Dzeko to England four years ago--£27 million, to Germany's Wolfsburg-but not altogether surprising considering Edin's diminished role at Etihad Stadium last season.

Still, despite the reduced price, Edin Dzeko is likely to be the biggest transfer of the summer for AS Roma, who have mostly been modest with their signings as of late. He's also the only forward to join the club yet this summer-surprising, considering that Roma didn't exactly set the scoreboard on fire during the 2014 2015 season. Indeed,

On August 5^th, just five days ahead of their 2015 2016 Premier League season opener, Manchester City football club officially began selling their brand new away kit design in stores. That didn't give fans much time to get their hands on the Manchester City away kit 2015 - 2016 before the Sky Blues' season-starting fixture at West Bromwich Albion, on August 10^th.

Now, the Sky Blues have put themselves in first place on the Premier League table with a thrilling 3-0 win at West Brom, and you have plenty of time to stop by Soccer Box and pick up a new Manchester City away shirt before the football club wears it next! Manchester City are set to play Chelsea FC at home on August 16^th, but will play their next out of town fixture on August 23^rd, at Everton. Soccer Box is the place to go if you are looking for either the home

Last season was something of a heartbreaker for fans of AFC Ajax, as the football club's chances of winning a fifth-straight Eredivisie title-something that no club in Dutch soccer history has ever accomplished-fell apart. Sure, the Lancers still played a solid season and finished in second. But they were beaten so handily by their rivals at PSV Eindhoven-PSV ended the season with 88 points in the league standings, while Ajax had 71-that even second place felt like a crushing disappointment. We take a look at their 2015 - 2016 Eredivisie week one performance, as well as rounding up the entire league's first week of play.

A Perfect Start

From the looks of it, though, this season could be a chance for the wearers of the Ajax home jersey 2015
2016 to get back to the top of the Eredivisie table. Indeed, after week one of the

We'll find out about the match-ups for the Champions League group stage on August 27^th, but in the meantime, UEFA have officially announced the Champions League Play-Off Round Draw 2015 - 2016. As usual, the play-offs will see 20 teams competing against one another in two-leg match-ups. The winning football clubs from each of the 10 match-ups will be added to the draw fro the Champions League group stage. The losing soccer squads, meanwhile, will enter the group stage for the 2015 2016 Europa League.

The Champions Route

The play-off round for the Champions League is always split up into two sections: the Champions Route and the League Route. The Champions Route is comprised of division champions from countries whose football leagues are too small and not quite competitive enough to earn an automatic UCL qualification. The League Route, meanwhile, is made up of second, third, or fourth-placed teams from more competitive

Could FC Barcelona reach a clean-sweep, six-trophy run for the 2014 2015 football campaign? They're only two trophies away now, after beating Sevilla in extra time on Tuesday night to clinch the 2015 UEFA Super Cup title. Barca add that trophy to their already-impressive assemblage of titles from the past year, alongside trophies from the La Liga regular season, the UEFA Champions League, and the Copa Del Rey. Victories in the 2015 Supercopa de Espana and the 2015 Club World Cup would turn Barcelona's impressive year into one for the record books.

Still, while FC Barcelona have been very nearly unbeatable throughout 2015, their clean sweep campaign very nearly came to an end on Tuesday night, as Sevilla FC put up quite a fight in the 2015 Super Cup match. The game, played at the Boris Paichadzis Erovnuli Stadioni in Tbilisi, Georgia, pitted Barcelona (the winners of the 2014 2015 UEFA Champions League) against Sevilla (the winners of the 2014 2015 Europa League) for the ultimate

Is the summer ending already? It feels like the 2014 2015 football season only just wrapped up, but in several divisions-including the English Premier League and the French Ligue 1-the 2015 2016 campaign is already underway. The Ligue 1 started with a bang on Friday, August 17^th, with a win for Paris Saint Germain over Lille, and continued throughout the weekend. Now, all 20 teams in the league have played their first games, and we're going to take a few minutes to analyze the outcomes of the 2015 - 2016 Ligue 1 Week One weekend-and what they might mean for the season to come.

Football Jerseys

Positive Beginnings

Eight Ligue 1 soccer squads managed season-starting wins over the weekend, including top 2014 2015 finishers like Paris Saint Germain and Monaco.

In the grand scheme of things, the standings after the first few weeks of Premier League play don't matter at all. So much happens between that first weekend of competitive play in August, and the last week of competition in May, that the few goals and points mustered at the start barely even give indication of where the season might be headed. For instance, last year, Aston Villa were in third place in the EPL after winning their week one game against Stoke City. They ultimately finished 17^th in the division, just barely dodging relegation. But lets take a look at the results and standings after the Premier League 2015 - 2016 Week One.

The Table Leaders

Bottom line, there's no reason to place much stock in the current standings for the 2015 2016 Premier League, which, after the first weekend of competitive play, have a number of unusual suspects situated near the top of the table.

Well, other